Disney is close to a deal to acquire a large piece of 21st Century Fox, people familiar with the situation say, in a pact that could help the entertainment giant accelerate its ambitions in streaming media, shore up its TV business and grab hold of lucrative movie franchises.

The highest-earning Americans will get a lower tax rate and corporations will pay slightly more than in previous plans under a deal House and Senate Republicans reached on the party’s competing tax-overhaul bills.1073

The upset defeat of Republican Roy Moore in Alabama’s special election sparked finger-pointing Wednesday between the GOP establishment, who opposed Mr. Moore, and Donald Trump’s insurgent allies led by Steve Bannon, who backed him.

Globalization in Retreat

The rise of economic nationalism is clashing with the open-market ideals of the EU’s original founders. Member states, including France and some in the east, are introducing new rules to favor domestic production and labor.

Prime Minister Theresa May lost a crucial vote in Parliament when rebel lawmakers from her party joined the opposition in approving a measure that gives the legislature greater control over the Brexit terms.

The A-hed

Shortly after Interpublic Group’s Martin Agency pushed out one of advertising’s star creative executives, employees demanded a full accounting of why—and unleashed more allegations of sexual harassment.99

A Chinese tech company pulled offline a virtual-reality avatar depicted as a flirtatious secretary in revealing clothes, hours after The Wall Street Journal asked whether such depictions encourage a view of women as sexual objects in the workplace.

Netflix helped spark the debate over net neutrality three years ago by raising concerns about how its internet traffic was being handled. But as the U.S. government prepares to repeal the rules on Thursday, the video giant has been less vocal on a key issue.

Some lawmakers are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to add new safeguards against fraudulent public online comments amid an FCC vote Thursday to roll back rules that require internet-service providers to treat all web traffic equally.

Middle East Crossroads

Militants with the al-Shabaab group control roughly 30% of Somalia, one of the largest swaths of real estate in the world that remains under jihadist sway since the recent demise of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.